In my U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,460 which was issued Jan. 17, 1978, to the assignee of the present invention, a balanced current comparator is disclosed. The present invention makes use of that comparator to provide an amplitude modulated (AM) carrier wave detector. The detector has utility in AM radio receivers as a precision full wave detector. In particular, it has utility in AM stereo radio receivers where precision rectification is needed. Most present AM stereo radio receivers employ a conventional diode AM detector which acts as a peak rectifier. Such detectors must be operated at a high-signal level to avoid nonlinearities, and therefore, tend to produce carrier signal radiation. The peak rectification characteristic also makes them responsive to impulse noise. A suitable detector should be relatively immune to noise, produce as low radiation as possible, precisely rectify the AM carrier, and provide a carrier related direct-current (d-c) output.